TL; DR: Another blog post with a special guest, this time our friend Isotta. She arrived a day before the Whisky Fringe, and before that we visited the rebuilt Eden Mill distillery, just outside St. Andrews. The new building is stunning, and the process has radically changed compared to the original configuration. The tour ended with a dram to go, as the visitor centre was still WIP then. 

It’s always nice to have friends and family over…And when they don’t mind a dram or two, even better! That was the case for Gianluigi’s youngest brother, Edoardo, who came with us on a few trips already, on Islay & Jura, Speyside and recently, in the Northern Highlands. Another great trip was Gianluigi’s weekend in Campbeltown with his pal Roberto, back in April. Although we’re comfortable in our bubble of whisky enthusiasm, visiting a distillery, or more generally discussing about whisky with people who like it but are not nerds is often refreshing and helps gain new perspectives.

Another good friend who enjoys her drams is Isotta: like Edoardo, she’s a teacher, so she can only come over for holidays in summer. This one wasn’t the first time we did something related to whisky with her: a few years ago, we went to a very boozy dinner at the Vaults. Two years ago, we opted for a classic warehouse tasting at Deanston. This year we planned something different: we met in Fife and spent one night in Falkland, a very cute wee village at the bottom of the Lomond Hills. We had a good meal at the Covenanter Hotel, the only pub currently operating in town, ended with a flight of the new and local independent bottler Saltire Rare Malts. In the morning, we woke up early and climbed the West Lomond Hill after a nice walk, although the strong wind on the summit make it less enjoyable. Back to Mr. Vantastic, we drove 35 minutes to reach our destination: the newly built Eden Mill distillery.

We reached it quickly in time for the tour, despite Google sending us to the wrong entrance. The site is near the mouth of the river Eden, in a village called Guardbridge, to the north of St. Andrews, near Leuchars. Before the modern redevelopment, the whole area was a paper mill, but before that, it’s here that the Haig family produced whisky until around 1860. Today the site is mostly occupied by the University of St. Andrews, including a biomass plant, part of ongoing research into alternative fuels and carbon capture. The old distillery used to be on the same site, in a building which now hosts university offices.

We did the Behind the Scenes tour, the only experience available at the time as the visitor centre was not ready yet (August 2025). It included a tour of the distillery, a whiff of the newmake spirit and a 5cl of their blended malt Guardbridge, which has Eden Mill malt from the old distillery in it (and it looks like it’s mostly from ex-bourbon casks). They now (September 2025) have new experiences, a couple for gin lovers, and various for whisky enthusiasts, ranging from £26 to £150pp. We were welcomed inside a bothy (both a small office and a pop-up shop), by Finlay and Jude: the former was our guide for the day, the latter the driver who took us inside an Eden Mill branded van to the courtyard of the distillery, on the other side of the complex (the same side Google had erroneously sent us before).

The distillery’s goal with the new set‑up is a fruitier, more floral spirit than before, and that intention is reflected in the production choices. For comparison, they kept the old 900-litre still, which is dwarfed by the new ones. The theoretical capacity could reach up to 1 million litres of alcohol per annum, but Finlay told us this is unlikely. At first, they were running 3 distillations a week to catch up with the casks they sold before, but it is now only one per week. One distillation, however, can fill up to 68 casks at 68.5%, which means that in about a month and a half they can produce the same amount of whisky that was produced in the old distillery between 2014 and 2018 (about 420 casks).

The barley variety is Laureate and is grown in Fife, sourced within a 50-mile radius to keep things local. Mashing is done with three runs of water at increasing temperature, and the draff is sent to local farmers. Fermentation is run in one of the six stainless 15,000-litre washbacks and is longer than before, around 72 hours, using Type M distillers’ yeast supplied by Kerry via a local distributor. The extra time is to let fruity esters develop, to get the fruitier spirit they’re aiming for. The new stills are steam‑heated via a gas-fired boiler, with a 15,000-litre onion‑shaped wash still and an 11,500-litre spirit still with a pronounced boiler bulb to enhance reflux. In the second distillation, the cuts are between 72% and 63.5%abv.

Three external water tanks help with cooling and process resilience. Casks are filled on site and then moved off site for insurance reasons. Long-term storage is palletised, with one of the warehouses in Glenrothes. The cask make‑up is mostly ex‑bourbon with sherry casks used more for finishing, roughly a 70/30 split for now. However, the first two casks were Scottish virgin oak. Worth noting that they’re collaborating with the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, and they’re releasing a small number of casks for private sale. They also produce gin from neutral grain spirit distilled with botanicals. There are three gins in the range, leaning on locally sourced botanicals in line with the whisky’s local‑first ethos.

At the end of the tour there was no tasting, because “the bothy” didn’t have the required license to serve alcohol, so we got our sample of Guardbridge Blended malt to go. The other expressions on sale were an ex-Bourbon and a Sherry matured single malts, and a range of limited releases (in fancy boxes), some of which single casks. For a proper tasting, Finlay and Jude suggested us their shops in St Andrews or  Edinburgh, near the Johnny Walker Experience, but we passed on that occasion. We were quite happy anyway: we were impressed with the new distillery, and what they are doing seems very promising. We were not massive fans of their previous releases (at least, the few we tried), but judging from the newmake spirit, the direction of travel is very good.

After the distillery, we kept driving along the Fife coast, on the East Neuk: the weather was decent, so we enjoyed the wee coastal villages, in particular St. Monans, where we stopped for tea and cake. Thankfully we drove back to Leith when the Oasis crowd were already settling at Murrayfield, so we didn’t find much traffic. To close off a good whisky weekend, the day after we went to the Whisky Fringe festival. A first for Isotta, who really enjoyed it. As always, it was a joyful and great whisky experience.

Stay tuned for our attempt to attend the Hebridean Whisky festival, in a couple of weeks! Until then, slàinte!

---

Eden Mill Behind The Scenes Tour

Price: £15.00 pp (August 2025)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: 5cl miniature of Guardbrige Blended Malt (46%)

Target: anyone

Value for money: good

Highlights: the new distillery

Recommended: yes, but this tour is not available anymore, follow the link for more alternatives

Link: https://www.edenmill.com/

---